In January, Bulloch County Schools will begin administering the Georgia Student Health Survey online to students in grades 3 through 12 and grades 6 to 12 for the Virtual Learning Program, according to a release from the school district.
Parents may review the surveys' questions prior to it being administered beginning Jan. 17. They are posted on each school's and the district's websites and printed copies are available by request from school offices. (Copies of the form are attached to the story on statesboroherald.com)
Parents who wish to opt their child out of participation in the survey, may complete a form and return it to their child's school by January 13. The form is also available online or from your school's office.
Each school will set its own schedule for administering the surveys. All schools are required to survey at least 75 percent of their students by Feb. 1. However, the state will leave the survey open through March 1, if schools need additional time to meet the goal.
There are two age-appropriate versions of the Student Health Survey: (1) third to fifth grades; and (2) sixth to twelfth grades. These are brief, 15-minute surveys, whose individual student responses are self-reported and anonymous. Online responses are submitted directly to the Georgia Department of Education for analysis, not the school district. The state does not make the surveys’ raw data results public, overall results are sent to school districts and made public on the state's website.
“Please encourage children to take the questions seriously and answer truthfully,” Said Hayley Greene, the school district’s Public Relations director, said in the release. “The results are used to guide each school's School Climate Initiatives, provide direction for health curriculum, and provide goals for drug and alcohol prevention education.
School climate refers to the quality and character of life in a school. School climate sets the tone for all the learning and teaching done in the school environment, and it is predictive of a child’s ability to learn and develop in healthy ways, according to the release.
Student Health Survey results
While individual student responses are confidential, the Georgia Student Health Survey Dashboard does provide overall results for the public by school and school district. It provides data about how students respond to survey questions about school safety, school climate, peer and adult social support, bullying, mental health, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.